The 150 game-changing tech deals of 2023

InvestmentDeals

UK deal volumes and values may have been down in 2023 but it’s still been a busy 12 months in the tech sector.

BusinessCloud has been reporting the news all year, including Castore’s record valuation of £950m after securing a £150m investment led by The Raine Group and unicorn Quantexa raising £104m in Series E funding led by GIC.

Not all the fundraises are at that level but BusinessCloud has identified 150 of the game-changing tech deals that we’ve reported on in 2023.

Unsurprisingly London dominates while FinTech, HealthTech and companies involved in climate technology and cyber security also appear regularly.

The companies are listed in chronological order based on when the story was published in BusinessCloud. Not all investors are named.

January 2023

Abingdon MedTech Grey Wolf Therapeutics raised £40m Series B funding for its cancer-fighting technology. The financing was co-led by Pfizer Ventures and Earlybird Venture Capital.

Employee volunteering and sustainability platform, onHand, raised a pre-Series A funding round of £3.3m ($4m) led by 24Haymarket. Described as the ‘Uber for volunteering’, onHand helps engage employees with on-demand social impact and sustainability initiatives, with tracked CO2e reductions. Sanjay Lobo, MBE is the CEO.

Virtual retail trailblazer Emperia raised £8.1m in funding, led by Base10 Partners.  The company, based in London and New York, was founded in 2018 by Olga Dogadkina and Simonas Holcmann.

Tranch, a buy now, pay later platform for business, raised £81m in equity and debt funding. Founded in London in 2021, Tranch is led by Philip Kelvin and Beau Allison. The seed funding round was led by Soma Capital and FoundersX and featured several UK and US FinTech founders. The credit facility was from Clear Haven Capital Management.

Slingshot Simulations, a Leeds-based digital twin and decision intelligence company, secured a £3m Series A round of investment from Northern Gritstone, Mercia and the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund (NPIF). A spinout from the University of Leeds, based in Nexus on the university’s campus, Slingshot Simulations was founded in 2019 by Dr David McKee.

RegTech innovator Global Screening Services completed an initial funding round of £37m, with investors including AlixPartners, The Cynosure Group and MUFG.

Manchester-based recruiter marketplace, Hiring Hub, secured a multimillion-pound investment from European private equity fund, MonacoSol. Founded by Simon Swan, Hiring Hub connects businesses with recruiters to help them find the best candidates.

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Scottish digital health company PneumoWave raised £7.5m in Series A investment. The company wearable sensor technology sends alerts to carers and emergency medical services. The round comprised £5.2m equity from new investors Scottish National Investment Bank, alongside £2.3m from existing investors Scottish Enterprise, IIG, Equity Gap, Alba Equity and London and Scottish Investment Partners.

Arctic Shores, which helps organisations with their recruitment through game technology and behavioural science, raised £5.75m in Series B investment. Praetura Ventures and London-based private equity firm Calculus Capital led the investment.

HealthTech Peppy announced a £37m ($45m) Series B to grow the US business and consolidate their UK operations. The round was led by AlbionVC. Peppy was co-founded by Mridula Pore, Evan Harris and Max Landry in 2018, who all experienced the ‘oh wow!’ moment of bringing a baby home for the first time.

London-headquartered MedTech InstaDeep was acquired for an initial £362m. German-based BioNTech SE, which is listed on New York’s Nasdaq, announced it will pay that amount up front in cash and BioNTech shares. Shareholders in InstaDeep, which was founded in Tunisia, will be eligible to receive additional performance-based future milestone payments up to approximately £200m.

An app that helps members better manage ADHD through Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) raised £9m ($11m) in Series A funding. The investment in Inflow was led by Octopus Ventures.

Hack The Box, the world’s largest hacking community, raised £45m ($55m) in Series B funding led by the Carlyle Group. The international cyber security training firm was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Kent. The Series B was led by Carlyle.

InsurTech Superscript raised £45m in Series B funding, which was led by existing investor BHL UK, owner of Comparethemarket. Cameron Shearer is the CEO and co-founder.

Oxford Ionics raised £30m in a Series A round led by Oxford Science Enterprises and Braavos Investment Advisers. The company was founded in 2019 by Dr Chris Ballance and Dr Tom Harty.

February

London-based Metomic raised £16.6m ($20m) in Series A funding, which was led by Evolution Equity Partners with participation from Resonance and Connect Ventures. The investment was used to target US expansion. Rich Vibert, is the CEO and co-founder of Metomic.

Robin AI, the generative AI startup, raised £8.75m ($10.5m) led by Plural, with participation from Episode 1. Robin AI’s enables users to draft and negotiate legal contracts faster and cheaper.

CyberSmart, a London-based cybersecurity specialist for SMEs, closed a £12.75m Series B fundraise, which was led by Oxx, a leading European VC firm.

EO Charging secured £66m investment following its SPAC listing failure. Last year the global electric vehicle infrastructure network agreed a $675m merger with special purpose acquisition vehicle First Reserve Sustainable Growth to list in New York. However the slump in public markets killed the deal. Instead the Stowmarket-based company received backing by Vortex Energy and Zouk Capital at a lower valuation. Charlie Jardine is the CEO and founder.

Patient engagement platform, DrDoctor, secured a £10m investment from YFM Equity Partners, Ananda Impact Ventures and 24 Haymarket. The firm was founded in 2012 by Tom Whicher, Rinesh Amin and Perran Pengelly and provides digital care solutions to increase communication and engagement between patients and clinicians.

Car finance FinTech Carmoola raised an £8.5m Series A round and £95m debt facility to revolutionise the way people pay for car purchases. The round was led by US-based FinTech specialist QED Investors. Aidan Rushby is the co-founder and CEO.

Cheshire-based airport tech firm AeroCloud raised £10.5m in Series A investment led by US fund Stage 2 Capital, I2BF Global Ventures, Triple Point Venture and Praetura Ventures. AeroCloud was founded by former professional racing driver George Richardson.

Quantum Motion raised £42m in the largest funding round to date for a UK quantum computing startup. The company was founded by Professor John Morton, UCL and Professor Simon Benjamin and the round was led by Bosch Ventures and joined by Porsche Automobil Holding SE and British Patient Capital.

Dronamics, the world’s first cargo drone airline with license to operate in Europe, raised £33m ($40m) in pre-Series A funding from a mix of venture capital funds and angel investors from 12 countries.

Quell, the UK-based fitness gaming developer and publisher pioneering the future of fitness gaming technology, completed a £8m($10m) Series A funding round. The investment was led by Tencent with follow-on investment from Khosla Ventures, Heartcore Capital, Social Impact Capital and entrepreneur Naval Ravikant. Quell was co-founded by Lorenzo Spreafico, Cameron Brookhouse and Martin Tweedie.

VivaCity, the transport technology firm, announced £7m in funding to fuel its expansion into North America. The funding round has been led by ENV, Foresight Group and Gresham House Ventures.

London-based Landytech, the company behind leading investment reporting platform, Sesame, raised £10m ($12m) in Series B funding. The round was led by an investment from Aquiline Technology Growth (ATG) and additional investment from existing investor Adelie Capital. Benjamin Moute is the CEO and founder of Landytech.

Cardiff-based digital asset protection technology company Coincover won £25m backing led by Silicon Valley’s Foundation Capital with follow-on investment from CMT digital.

Synthetic biology company Evonetix raised an additional £20m ($24m), which was led by Foresite Capital. Colin McCracken is the CEO Evonetix.

Phlo, Glasgow digital pharmacy leaders, closed a £10m Series A round led by family office Thairm Bio, to expand the reach of Phlo Digital Pharmacy. Phlo’s Series A round was a combination of equity investment and the conversion of existing loan notes.

London-based AI-driven waste robotics company, Recycleye, completed a £13.6m ($17m) Series A financing round, led by deep-tech venture capital firm DCVC. The idea for Recycleye began when CEO Victor Dewulf visited a recycling facility as part of his degree and was surprised at the level of manual labour involved.

London-based Ziflow, a creative collaboration and online proofing platform for agencies and brands, raised £16m ($20m) in Series A funding. The funding was led by Riverside Acceleration Capital (RAC) and Companyon Ventures. Anthony Welgemoed is the co-founder and CEO of Ziflow.

Re:course AI, the Manchester-based leading conversational AI learning and assessment platform for healthcare professionals, secured £3.5m ($4.3m) in seed funding. The round was led by Par Equity and included Northern Gritstone. Re:course AI was founded by Dr Scott Martin, CEO, and Dr Maksim Belousov, CTO, who describe the company as the ‘flight simulator for healthcare and life sciences’.

Climate analytics firm Risilience raised £21m in a Series B funding round to help global businesses transition to the low-carbon economy. It was led by Quantum Innovation Fund, alongside existing investors IQ Capital and National Grid Partners.

Dxcover, a Glasgow-based company developing a blood test that can detect cancer at an early stage, raised £9.7m through a Series A investment round and grant funding. The £7.5m funding round was led by existing investors Eos Advisory LLP, Mercia Asset Management, Scottish Enterprise, University of Strathclyde, SIS Ventures and Norcliffe Capital, which were joined by US-based life science investor Mark Bamforth of Thairm Bio. Dxcover also secured a £2.2m grant from the European Innovation Council. Dxcover’s team is led by Dr Mark Hegarty.

Doctify, the global platform for patient reviews of health and social care, secured £8m ($10m) in investment. The growth fund has been led by Beringea and a number of existing investors. Doctify was launched in 2015 by Stephanie Eltz and Suman Saha, who met as trainee surgeons, to address the lack of a trusted or transparent online platform for patient reviews.

London FinTech iwoca increased its funding line from £125m to £170m with long-standing partner Pollen Street Capital. Founded in 2011, the small business lender has experienced a surge in working capital demand.

Sheffield-founded Tribepad, a talent acquisition software provider, secured a £12m investment from BGF.

March

London-headquartered FinTech Paytrix raised £14.8m in Series A funding, which was co-led by Unusual Ventures, Motive Partners and Bain Capital Ventures.

Zedify – the UK’s largest electric cargo bike delivery network –secured a £5m investment led by Barclays Sustainable Impact Capital and MEIF Proof of Concept & Early Stage Fund. The funding will enable the Cambridge-based company to roll out the service to more locations and create more than 120 jobs nationwide.

London-based machine learning platform Seldon raised £16.4m to expand its product’s market fit. The round was led by new investor Bright Pixel with significant participation from existing investors AlbionVC, Cambridge Innovation Capital and Amadeus Capital Partners.

Oxford MedTech Perspectum extended its Series C round to more than £45m. In January the disease diagnosis company revealed a £30m raise as it scales across the US. That round was topped up with almost £16m, again led by Oppenheimer Holdings. Dr Rajarshi Banerjee is the CEO of Perspectum.

Digital therapy platform HelloSelf, which makes mental health care more accessible, raised £16.5m. The firm was founded in 2019 by Charlie Wells after he survived a rare and usually fatal form of brain haemorrhage. The round was led by Octopus Ventures and joined by Omers, Mantaray and Oxford Capital.

Holographic technology company Envisics raised £42m in Series C funding – valuing the business to $500m. The investment round was led by Hyundai Mobis – an investor from its Series B round in 2020 – included additional investments from new strategic shareholders InMotion Ventures, the investment arm of Jaguar Land Rover, and Stellantis. Dr Jamieson Christmas is the CEO and founder of Envisics.

Lloyds Banking Group invested £10m in digital identity company Yoti. Robin Tombs is the CEO or Yoti.

ufurnish.com, a search and discovery platform for home furniture and furnishings, raised £3.4m in seed funding from a range of investors. Led by co-founder and CEO Deirdre Mc Gettrick, a former star in the world of finance, it brought the total funding raised by the ‘Rightmove for furniture’ to £5.2m.

Abound, a FinTech that uses artificial intelligence and open banking to provide more accurate and affordable loans, raised more than £500m to turbocharge its growth in the UK market. The business was co-founded in 2020 by Michelle He and Gerald Chappell. The new funding round comprised both debt and equity financing.

London-based OnePlan, the live event site and venue planning platform, raised £5m in a new investment round led by Elysian Park Ventures, the private investment arm of the LA Dodgers Ownership Group, and Verance Capital. Founded in 2019, OnePlan provides ground-breaking 3D digital mapping tools that allow venue planners to organise all sizes of live events. Paul Foster is OnePlan’s founder and CEO.

April

Social Value Portal (SVP), the UK’s leading platform for measuring and monitoring social impact, secured £8.5m in a Series B funding round. The investment has been led by Mercia with support from existing investor Beringea. SVP was founded in 2014 by Guy Battle.

Manchester-based Voicescape, the leading provider of communications software for social housing providers and local authorities, secured a £9m investment from BGF.

Challenger credit card Yonder raised £12.5m in equity and £50m, in debt following a Series A funding round. The round was co-led by Northzone and RTP Global alongside angel investors Joseph Moore, founder of Crust Bros, and Cred founder Kunal Shah, who join a host of existing investors including Sharmadean Reid. The funding resulted in the startup having a post-money valuation of more than £70m.

Newcastle-headquartered technology consultancy hedgehog lab secured £6.3m investment from BGF to grow globally. As part of the deal, the business has announced the acquisition of York-based digital product consultancy Netsells.

 

Cambridge-based cancer drug discovery firm Mosaic Therapeutics closed a £22m ($28m) Series A funding round by Syncona Investment Management and Cambridge Innovation Capital. The company also announced the appointment of former Novartis Oncology SVP Brian Gladsden as CEO.

Mortgage platform, Acre, secured a £6.5m investment to grow its tech platform and revolutionise the process of buying a home. The McPike Global Family Office (MGFO), joined returning investors Aviva and Founders Factory, to provide new funds.

London-headquartered unicorn Quantexa was valued at $1.8bn after raising £104m in Series E funding led by GIC which included Warburg Pincus, Dawn Capital, British Patient Capital, Evolution Equity Partners, HSBC, BNY Mellon, ABN AMRO and AlbionVC.

Growing eBike firm HumanForest underwent a rebrand after a £12m Series A fundraise, which included Tridos Bank, TheVentureCity’s founder and CEO Laura González-Estéfanim Cabify co-founder Vicente Pascual and LarrainVial.

May

Construction tech scaleup Qflow (Qualis Flow) closed a £7.2m Series A fundraise to support its mission to decarbonise global construction. The fundraise was led by climate tech VC Systemiq Capital alongside Ascension Ventures, Bridge Investment Group, Gravel Rd, Greensoil Proptech Ventures and Grosvenor. Brittany Harris is the co-founder and CEO of Qflow.

Climate tech firm Cur8 raised £5.3m in pre-seed funding to kick start its growth. The round was led by GV (Google Ventures) and includes CapitalT and the investment will be used to grow the team.

EnviroTech UrbanChain raised £5.25m in a Series A round led by leading global investment firm Eurazeo. The Manchester-headquartered energy technology company runs the leading peer-to-peer (P2P) energy exchange in the UK, a unique energy market and trading platform for renewables. UrbanChain’s CEO is Dr Somayeh Taheri.

London-based marketplace Laced raised £10m ($12m) in a Series A round led by early-stage investment firm Talis Capital. The company was founded in 2018 by CEO Chris Gibbons.

A London-based AI-powered software platform announced £200m ($250m) in Series D funding led by Qatar Investment Authority (QIA). Launched in 2016, Builder.ai claims to build software and apps up to 6x faster and 70 per cent cheaper than traditional human teams.

Climate-tech Satellite Vu raised £12.7m from Molten Ventures in a Series A2 round bringing the company’s total venture funding to £30.5m.

Fast-growing full fibre broadband provider 4th Utility received a £25m investment from Netherlands-based NIBC Bank. 4^th Utility was established in 2017 and is headquartered in Hale, Manchester.

Adarga, the London-based AI software leader, secured £16m ($20m) in new funding for its market-defining information intelligence platform. The round was led by BOKA Group.

YFM Equity Partners (YFM) helped back a £24m buy-out of Warrington-based Resulting IT, via a £9.3m investment.

London-headquartered pensions FinTech Smart closed a £76m ($95m) Series E funding round led by Aquiline Capital Partners. The round followed a £165m Series D fund raise in 2021. Smart was Established in 2014 by Andrew Evans and Will Wynne in the wake of the UK’s roll out of mandatory workplace pension auto enrolment.

Praetura Ventures led a £1.5m investment into Manchester tech company Sticky, whose customers use creative branded stickers – known as ‘stickies’ – which house NFC based technology. Sticky was co-founded by James Garner and Priscilla Israel.

University of Southampton spin-out AccelerComm closed a £21.5m Series B investment from Parkwalk, Swisscom and Hostplus.

London HealthTech TympaHealth raised £18.4m in a Series A funding round led by Octopus Ventures.

Pricing operations platform m3ter raised £11.2m in Series A funding. The round was led by Notion Capital.

Molten Ventures led an £8m ($10m) Series A funding round in Zaptic, the Manchester-based software company that works with global manufacturing companies.

June

Versori, a provider of data infrastructure solutions, raised £2.75m in investment. The funding round into the Manchester-based startup was led by Stage 2 Capital. Versori was founded by CEO Sean Brown.

Nothing, a London-based consumer technology brand, raised £76m in a funding round led by Highland Europe. Carl Pei is the CEO and co-founder of Nothing.

London-based Upp., which uses artificial intelligence to disrupt how retailers market and sell their products online, raised £7.87m ($10m) in a Seed funding round led by California-based Bonfire Ventures. The startup was founded in 2019 by serial tech entrepreneur Ben White, co-founder and chairman, who built and sold MessageLabs and Drew Smith.

Warehouse robotics firm Dexory raised £15mi to scale in the US. Dexory, which topped BusinessCloud’s RetailTech 50 ranking this year, combines analytics with autonomous robots. The £15m in Series A funding was led by leading European VC firm Atomico.

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London FinTech TreasurySpring is targeting global expansion after raising £23m in Series B funding, which was led by Balderton Capital and includes Mubadala Capital, and previous investors ETFS Capital, MMC Ventures and Anthemis Group.

Cardiff FinTech Mypinpad, an innovator in mobile card payments acceptance and identity authentication software solutions, raised more than £10m in funding from Crossfin Holdings.

London FinTech Volt raised £47m from Silicon Valley-based investor IVP to expand its infrastructure for real-time payments around the world.

London-based blockchain AI startup Gensyn raised £34m in Series A round of funding, which was led by a16z Crypto, alongside CoinFund, Canonical Crypto, Protocol Labs, Eden Block, Maven 11 and various angel investors. Gensyn was co-founded in 2020 by Ben Fielding and Harry Grieve.

Cambridge startup Higher Steaks, which cultivates pork from animal cells raised £24m in Series A funding led by Balderton Capital and Lowercarbon. The company rebranded as Uncommon following the raise.

London FinTech Griffin raised £10.8m in Series A funding in a round led by global VC firm MassMutual Ventures.

Manchester-based business intelligence platform Red Flag Alert received a £3.5m private equity investment from Foresight Group. Richard West is the CEO of Red Flag Alert.

July

ev.energy, an electric vehicle managed charging software platform, raised £26m in a round led by National Grid Partners with support from Aviva Ventures, WEX Venture Capital and InMotion Ventures. ev.energy connects electric vehicles to grid networks to make charging simpler, greener and cheaper for drivers.

London-based AutogenAI raised £17.2m to bring the power of large language models and generative artificial intelligence to procurement. Founded by Sean Williams the funding comes from European investor Blossom Capital.

Komi, a digital platform used by artists and celebrities including Elton John, Usher and Idris Elba to engage with fans, has raised $12m (£9.3m) in a Series A funding round led by VC investors including RTP, Third Prime, Antler, E& Capital, and Contour Ventures.

OrganOx, the medical technology company behind metra – an automated device for liver transplantation – raised £25m. The growth round into Oxford-based OrganOx was led by Lauxera Capital Partners, with support from existing investors.

InsurTech 50firm Tractable, which uses AI to assess the condition of cars and homes, raised £50m in Series E investment that was led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2.

London firm Sylvera raised £44m in Series B funding to scale its carbon intelligence platform in the US following a sevenfold increase in its customer base since it raised Series A investment in January 2022. New investors Balderton Capital, Bain & Company, Fidelity Strategic Ventures and 9Yards Capital joined the round, with participation from existing investors.

Optalysys, the Leeds developer of a revolutionary photonic processing technology, raised £21m in Series A funding, led by Lingotto, an investment management company owned by Exor N.V., imec.xpand and Northern Gritstone, with additional investors to follow.

Causaly, a London-based AI platform for biomedical research, closed a £46m round of Series B funding led by ICONIQ Growth. The latest round came after the company tripled revenue and customers.

UK scaleup Prolific raised £25m to help organisations harness human insights and feedback to improve and train their AI models. The Series A round was co-led by global tech investment specialist Partech and Oxford Science Enterprises (OSE). Phelim Bradley is the CEO.

Intelligent logistics platform Raft raised £23m in Series B funding. Founded in 2017, Raft – formerly known as Vector.ai – helps key players in the logistics industry apply AI to their daily tasks and customer interactions. The funding round was led by global VC investor Eight Roads. James Coombes is the CEO and co-founder.

Tandem Bank – billed as the UK’s greener bank – raised £20m in growth funding from Quilam Capital. The digital challenger was founded in 2014.

Manchester-based MusicForPets – described as the Netflix for pets or ‘Petflix’ – was acquired by US tech giant Create Music Group. Amman Ahmed founded MusicForPets in 2017 along with Ricardo Henriquez and it is now used by more than 50 million pets worldwide.

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Béa Fertility, a pioneering fertility tech startup making clinical-grade fertility care available at home, raised £2.5m in a fundraise led by Octopus Ventures. Led by FemTech expert Tess Cosad and product engineer George Thomas, Béa Fertility has developed one of the first clinical-grade at-home fertility treatments ever to launch in the UK market.

August

Cambridge MedTech Abcam was acquired for £4.5bn by Nasdaq-listed tech conglomerate Danaher. Alan Hirzel is the CEO.

Stone-headquartered life science software firm Instem accepted a £203m takeover approach from Ichor Management.

London-based music ticket platform Dice raised £51m ($65m) to fuel its global expansion plans. The fundraise was led by MUSIC, alongside Structural Capital and Ahdritz Holding LLC. There are follow on investments from Exor Ventures and Mirabaud Lifestyle Fund. Phil Hutcheon is the CEO.

UK property data and analytics business, Kamma, raised £3.6m in investment to help scale its net zero technology. Clean Growth Fund led the investment round with other investors including Triple Point, Pi Labs, Conduit EIS Impact Fund and Kiilto Ventures.

Glasgow-based food technology company, ENOUGH, raised £34m (€40m) in growth funding from World Fund, Europe’s leading climate tech VC, and food tech investor CPT.

Matter, a Bristol-based microplastic technology and innovation company, raised £7.9m ($10m) in Series A investment. The round was led by S2G Ventures and SOUNDwaves. Adam Root is the CEO.

Pockit, the financial app for low income and underserved communities, raised £8m ($10m) in a growth round led by Puma Private Equity. Founded by CEO Virraj Jatania in 2015, Pockit is on a mission to serve the billions of people who have been left behind by traditional financial services.

Chemify, a spin out from the University of Glasgow which aims to digitise the field of chemistry, raised more than £33m from international investors. The latest $43m (£33.5m) Series A fundraise was led by Triatomic Capital.

September

Apron raised £12.3m in Series A funding to slash the time small businesses spend processing invoices. The round was led by Index Ventures. Apron was founded by Revolut product leader Bogdan Uzbekov.

PE-backed ProofID acquired Texas-based Regatta Solutions Group to broaden its identity security capabilities. The Manchester-based company, which received £15m investment from Maven in 2022, specialises in Identity and Access Management (IAM). Tom Eggleston is the CEO.

Timeline, a Hertfordshire-based FinTech platform serving independent financial advisers, raised £10m in Series B funding led by BlackFin Capital Partners. Founded in 2018 by CEO Abraham Okusanya, Timeline provides independent financial advisers with financial planning software.

London FinTech Curve secured £58m in additional funding to take its Series C round to £133m as it targets profitability next year. Britannia, IDC Ventures, Cercano Management, Cohen Circle, and Outward VC were among shareholders to participate.

FinTech SME lender Fleximize secured £136m in securitised funding from existing investor Goldman Sachs Asset Management and new backer Citi.

Cambridge robotics business CMR Surgical raised another £133m from its existing investors after surpassing its 15,000th procedure globally. The firm raised £425m Series D financing in 2021 and £195m in a Series C round in 2019.

Broken String Biosciences, a genomics company building a technology platform to drive the development of cell and gene therapies that are safer by design, closed a £12m Series A investment round, which was co-led by Illumina Ventures and Mérieux Equity Partners.

London-headquartered Metaverse data specialist GEEIQ raised £6.6m in funding, which was led by YFM Equity Partners.

The company behind growing online pharmacy Chemist4U received a £12m investment from Pitalia Capital. The Skelmersdale-based business is part of JCCO Healthcare, which also includes the weight management platform myBMI.

Private equity firm ECI Partners completed a full takeover at Commify valued at €300m. The Nottingham-headquartered firm provides business messaging solutions to local enterprises including SMS, WhatsApp, email and voice messaging.

Dotdigital Group snapped up eCommerce personalisation firm Fresh Relevance for £25m.

Butternut Box, which delivers fresh dog food via a Deliveroo-style tech platform, raised £280m in funding from new investor General Atlantic and existing investor L Catterton.

InsurTech Ripe completed its first M&A transaction by acquiring specialist boat insurer Craftinsure. It was Ripe’s first acquisition since Aquiline Capital Partners invested in the business in 2021.

October

Shopblocks, an eCommerce platform that enables companies to set up an online store in a fraction of the time it takes to build a traditional website, raised over £1.5m from NPIF – Mercia Equity Finance, which is managed by Mercia and is part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund.

Spotted Zebra raised £7.7m in Series A funding to help enterprises tackle the global skills crisis. Founded in 2020, it counts a number of FTSE100 companies amongst its growing list of clients.

Warrington-based ITS Technology Group, the UK’s leading business fibre network provider, secured £100m of debt financing from global investment firm Avenue Capital Group to finance strategic M&A activity.

Intelli-Park, a leading provider of parking technology and management services, underwent a management buyout in a landmark deal valued at over £120m. Palladian Investment Partners acquired a majority stake in the business, which also included a minority investment by Vecturis Equity GmbH.

Leeds firms Fruition IT and Fruition Consulting – which had a combined turnover of £51.4m in 2022 – secured private equity backing from Irish firm Erisbeg. The Leeds businesses were founded and launched in 2008 by Sarah Pawson, who remained as managing director of both businesses.

Digital transformation firm Kin and Carta plc agreed a £203m private equity takeover approach led by Kelvin UK Bidco Limited, a newly formed company owned indirectly by funds advised by Apax Partners. Kelly Manthey is the CEO.

Bruntwood SciTech secured £500m of additional investment and welcomed the UK’s largest local authority pension fund, Greater Manchester Pension Fund, to the partnership. The £500m of new equity saw GMPF inject £150m alongside a significant increase in investment from existing shareholders, Legal & General and Bruntwood, through cash and asset transfer.

Instant payment startup Lopay secured £6m in seed funding from BackedVC, Portage, The Venture Collective and a series of high-profile angel investors. Founded in January 2022 by Richard Carter, the app claims that its fees are less than a third of those charged by PayPal and half those levied by SumUp and Zettle.

Grimsby-based Smart home energy technology manufacturer myenergi secured a £30m investment from Energy Impact Partners (EIP) and followed the £30m debt finance myenergi secured from HSBC earlier this year. Lee Sutton and Jordan Brompton founded myenergi in 2016 with the purpose of removing the barriers to fast adoption of renewable energy products.

Lottie, a free online marketplace based in London that connects care seekers and retirees to UK care homes, home care services and retirement living communities, raised a £16.4m Series A funding round led by Accel.

London FinTech kennek secured a £10.2m seed funding round led by HV Capital and supported by Dutch Founders Fund, AlbionVC, FFVC, and Plug & Play Ventures and Syndicate One.

Lancashire-based ESG expanded its data analytics capability by acquiring Edgbaston company Phidex for an undisclosed sum. It followed the earlier acquisition of Canadian tech firm

London automation company Automata raised £33m to accelerate its rapid growth in a fundraise led by Dimension with participation from A.P. Moller Holdings

AI-powered visual moderation company Unitary raised £12.4m in Series A funding led by Creandum with participation from Paladin Capital Group and Plural. Unitary is developing AI technology that understands video the same way that humans can.

Stevenage biotech firm Laverock Therapeutics expanded its seed funding round to £13.5m in a round led by Calculus Capital.

November

Castore, the tech-enabled Manchester-based sportswear brand, is now valued at £950m after securing a £150m investment. Founded in Liverpool in 2016 by brothers Thomas and Philip Beahon, the funding round was led by The Raine Group, a leading global TMT merchant bank, alongside Hanaco Ventures and Felix Capital.

PhysicsX, a startup developing generative AIs to enable breakthrough engineering in advanced industries, raised £25m in a Series A round. The round was led by General Catalyst and featured Standard Investments, NGP, Radius Capital and KKR co-founder and co-executive chairman Henry Kravis.

SME working capital provider TRIVER raised a further £20m in a debt facility with Luxembourg-based Avellinia Capital.

Farnborough-based nDreams was acquired in a £90m deal by Swedish games business Aonic in a landmark deal for the virtual reality games industry. nDreams has been described as the world’s biggest developer and publisher of VR games.

FinTech Monument raised more than £40m in a Series B funding round, backed by a combination of existing and new investors.  The round follows a strategic partnership with Dubai Investments.

Collaborative rebate management platform Enable raised $120m in Series D financing at a $1bn in pre-money valuation. The UK-founded company is now headquartered in San Francisco. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Digital infrastructure company Colt Technology Services completed the acquisition of Lumen EMEA for $1.8bn. The deal elevated London-headquartered Colt to one of the world’s largest business-to-business-only telecoms companies.

Cambridge-based Nu Quantum raised £7m in a pre-Series A round to help build the networking infrastructure for quantum computers. The round was led by Amadeus Capital Partners, Expeditions Fund and IQ Capital.

Durham-based Atom Bank raised over £100m in new equity capital from long-term shareholders BBVA, Toscafund and Infinity Investment Partners.

London FinTech Zilch won the backing from eBay in a deal which maintained its $2bn valuation. The Buy Now Pay Later company was backed with funding in the ‘low single digit millions’, according to The Telegraph. Philip Belamant is the CEO and co-founder of Zilch.

December

BGF made a multi-million pound follow-on investment into Liverpool-based Evoke Creative following significant contract wins and international growth. The exact size of the latest funding has not been revealed but it followed BGF’s investment of £6m in 2018.

Aldershot-headquartered OnTheMarket was acquired by Nasdaq-listed CoStar Group Inc in a deal that valued the property portal at £99m.

London-headquartered unicorn SumUp raised £244m in a funding round led by Sixth Street Growth.

Smart Metering Systems is set to be bought for £1.3bn by Sienna Bidco, a shell company wholly-owned by funds advised by US-headquartered Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co – better known as KKR.

Pragmatic Semiconductor, headquartered at Cambridge Science Park, raised £162m at the first close of its Series D funding round, with a second close to follow. M&G’s Catalyst fund and UK Infrastructure Bank co-led the investment.

eCommerce giant THG acquired prestige US skincare brand Biossance for $20m (£16m) after just five hours of bidding. Matthew Moulding, CEO of THG, said the deal to buy was a welcome change from foreign buyers gobbling up UK companies like a game of ‘Pac-Man.’

HURR, the London-based fashion rental marketplace, described as the ‘Airbnb for fashion’, raised £7.9m ($10m) in an investment round led by Praetura Ventures. CEO Victoria Prew came up with the idea for HURR in 2017 when she realised the demand for fast fashion was bad news for sustainability.

Bristol-based eCommerce fulfilment scaleup Huboo raised £29m on the back of a seventh successive year of growth. It comes from existing investors including Ada Ventures and Maersk.

Manchester-based digital products company Apadmi received minority investment from private equity investor CBPE to support its continued expansion. The business was founded 15 years ago by four friends Garry Partington, Nick Black, Adam Fleming and Howard Simms.